Three Republican state senators have challenged the recall petitions that voters filed against them. And it looks like recall elections of three Democratic senators, if they occur, will come separately, a week after the six Republican recall elections scheduled for July 12.
The three Republicans’ complaints are based on a technicality: that the recall petitioners are not identified as members of the Committees to Recall.
State senators Randy Hopper (Fond du Lac), Luther Olsen (Ripon) and Dan Kapanke (La Crosse) sued the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board in separate but virtually identical complaints in Dane County Court.
They claim the Accountability Board accepted registrations that were filed by the Committees to Recall, but not by the individual Recall Petitioners.
None of the complaints mention the actual basis of the recalls: voter anger at the senators’ support for the union-busting Budget Repair Bill, and the legislative tricks used to enact it, and then publish it in defiance of a judge’s order.
The three state senators cite Wis. Stat. § 9.10(2)(d), which states that “no petitioner may circulate a petition for the recall of an officer prior to completing registration.”
Recall petitions have been filed across the state in the furor over Gov. Scott Walker’s Budget Repair Bill aka the 2011 Wisconsin Act.
In addition to Hopper, Olsen and Kapanke, the Accountability Board issued certificates of sufficiency for three more Republican senators: Sheila Harsdorf (River Falls), Robert Cowles (Allouez), and Alberta Darling (River Hills).
The Accountability Board said in a statement Friday that three recalls filed against Democratic state senators are on hold because “the Board and its staff did not have enough time to consider the petitions.”
Full Article: Courthouse News Service.